In this week's Time Out, they have a special on the body, illustrated by one of those 'Ascent of Man' pictures where you start on the left at the least evolved and go through to the present day on the right. (A bit like, though not, the one above.)Now, I studied Archaeology and Anthropology as an undergraduate, so I have seen a lot of these drawings in textbooks, articles and so on, and I have never, ever, EVER seen one where the evolving figure was female*. I am led to the conclusion that women didn't evolve, we are just the same base ape creatures that we have been since the dawn of time. Either that or we came out of the primordial ooze perfect, stopping only to smear it on our faces as an exfoliating masque.
Why is the male the default? Why do we always have to learn about the history of our species entirely through the changes in men? Why are we still living by the notion that what is male is normal and what is female is different? We are the majority, remember, not you, you weird, hairy, penisy, breastless, low-voiced, non-menstruating freaks.
*I will grant you that the third figure from the left is sporting some impressive breasts but I think that they are just ape-man-boobs.
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Very funny. I vote for the second option: that we arrived perfect. And now I know why anthropology never grabbed me - my gender was somewhat under-represented.
Less serious answer: because most artists who draw those diagrams are gay or women and like to draw pictures of naked men?
Slightly more serious answer: because the first such picture was of men and their predecessors and all successor pictures have been homages back to them, either consciously or subconsciously.
Slightly off the wall answer: because they don't want teenage boys to get too excited in science classes (are they worried about excited teenage girls? I don't know. Maybe this is their way of getting more women to do science - naked men)
Slightly more moral answer: because there are more bits to hide if all the pictures are of naked women (and their predecessors)
Slightly oddly feminist answer: because academics are all lefties who are trying to increase the number of pictures of naked men -types relative to naked female-types to reduce the objectification of women in today's society and change the standard idea within Western society that if there's going to be a naked body depicted, it should be a woman's.
Slightly more serious answer still: I don't think we actually learn much about changes from pictures like that. Most developmental changes that we know about from fossils relate to skeletal adaptations; soft-tissue changes (which is where most of the differentiations between genders are to be find) are mostly guesswork. How hairy was Homo Erectus? Not sure we have much of an idea, even with DNA analysis, beyond "more hairy than us, less hairy than an ape". And maybe everyone's just less willing to guess about the soft-tissue changes over time in women.
That's a fabby and funny post Marie: sharp and well written (as ever: I especially liked the line "you weird, hairy, penisy, breastless, low-voiced, non-menstruating freaks.").
However, I think MediumRob's remark prety much dissects what would otherwise remain a fine bit from you of semi-off-the-cuff riffing from a feminist perspective...
Ooh. Biology and dissection: never a good combo.
I think Rob's "Slightly off the wall answer" is as close as any reason allied with a traditionally puritanical view.
Notice as well the positioning of the male's hand blocking the view of any other change in development.
Good answers but I'm not convinced. Remember, I have also had the joy of reading innumerable textbooks about "the evolution of man", "the ascent of man", and referring to humans as "mankind" and "he" by default, and that can't be just because of teenage boys getting stiffies over pictures of boobs. Not to mention that my first ever archaeology textbook opened with a double page spread of Raquel Welsh in a leather bikini from "One Million Years BC".
Oh, and you can definitely see dangly bits in two of the drawings.
"One Million Years BC"
But that was a documentary. Why wouldn't you have that in a textbook on the subject? Very forward thinking of them to include references to multimedia presentations in otherwise dry and dusty tomes.
Rob: re: "One Million Years BC".
BWAH!
Marie: I know what you mean about the language of evolution etc. What irks me is that it was like that for your textbooks even though sexist language had been acknowledged quite some time before you were anywhere near a university and yet STILL they wrote and write in that way...
I think I may have discovered the truly historically/anthropologically/hysterically definitive answer to the evolution of *both* sexes: http://www.avolites.org.uk/jokes/evolution.htm
I'd never thought of this but, they are all men aren't they? One assumes when these were first being drawn was the era of covering up table legs and such, so the first was a man, don't want to upset those sensibilities, and well, women wouldn't be looking at those sort of books. Why it has continued to be men god only knows, force of habit? I'm sure some bonkers uber-feminist type has done one, it's just a matter of hunting it down.
same thing with god, though, innit? never goddess, always a white man with a big beard. i blame the patriarchy.
on a lighter note, james sent you an email (and photo) to thank you for the whole wall oxjam thing but i don't know if that address is still good now you've changed blogdentity. if you have a new one, send it over and i'll send it again. xxx
Rivergirlie, in my book She often is a goddess, but She isn't always very nice, so it probably doesn't count. I did get the lovely e-mail from James, sorry that I didn't reply, it's very slack of me. Please both thank and apologise to him on my behalf.
TC, I have posted some Simone de Beauvoir above which I think you will appreciate more.
do you mean literally 'in your book'? when one is a best selling author, one has to be specific! xx
I mean literally in 'Gods Behaving Badly', available from all good bookshops now!
Did you see in the Observer on Sunday there was a picture of male and female monkey-people?
Ooh. Found one at last - it was on BBC4's What Darwin Didn't Know last month (I've only just watched it). Turns out it was the very first such drawing and it was by Ernst Haeckel, the Austrian biologist. Appropriately enough, it shows apes turning into Botticelli's Venus.
Pic 1
Pic 2
Bit rare though, aren't they?
Very rare apparently, good work that man!
I like this one.
http://www.decrepitoldfool.com/images/01/ascent-of-man-economist-425.jpg
At least they realise who has the real spending power.
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